Dieting and Detoxing (sort of)

Dieting apparently makes you fat and yes I mostly agree that it does. But, I also think the only sure-fire way to lose weight is to eat less. And lose some weight I must. It’s not that I am an uber-tubby heffalump, just that some of my winter clothes don’t fit me anymore – exhibit A is a much-loved black jacket that maddeningly I am no longer able to button up. I know that a horrid malign fairy hasn’t cast a malicious spell which caused my clothes to shrink. Rather I have eaten too much or I should say too much of the wrong sorts of food – exhibits B to Z are various slices of cake mostly of the coffee kind. So what I need to do is to change my eating habits to healthier ones and hopefully in the process lose a little weight.

I decided for the month of November to combine a sort-of-a-diet with a sort-of-a- detox. I wasn’t following any particular plan as my sort-of-a-diet/sort-of-a-detox is based on a rag-bag of ideas from different sources.The principle one is that I would detox progressively, dropping each week one thing from my eating and drinking repertoire. What this means in practise is that in week one I gave up alcohol – so no alcohol for the whole month; in week two I cut out red meat – so no red meat for three weeks. Doing without alcohol and red meat is easy-peasy although I have to fess up that on two social occasions I did have a glass of wine (just one at each).

It was about to get harder, I was going to give up coffee on week three and wheat and dairy for the final week. However I thought I might crack on such a restrictive regime and cave into temptation so I decided instead at the start of week three (yesterday) to cut my coffee consumption to one cup per day and for the final week I will cut out coffee, or any form of caffeine, altogether. Argh no coffee for a whole week!

I have added lots more fruit and vegetables to my daily diet. I have also started drinking shots of wheatgrass juice; I don’t have the right sort of juicer for wheatgrass so that means that I only drink it on days when I pass a café/shop where they juice it. It’s supposed to be drunk as soon as it’s juiced and it’s a bit of an acquired taste but if it has even a tiny of fraction of the myriad benefits claimed for it (powerful detoxing agent, builds red blood cells, boost immune system, aids digestion …) it will be worth it.

I don’t own a weighing scales so I am using a pair of trousers that once upon a time fitted perfectly but which are now obscenely snug as a test garment; after two weeks I feel they might be a tad looser. But only just. Still I have a few weeks to go before the end of the month so here’s hoping I will be able to wear them in December.

Happy weekend.